Lucas Neff: Baseball, Equality and America’s Families

You can tell a lot about someone by their favorite baseball team. And Lucas Neff, a Chicago native and star of TV’s Raising Hope, didn’t shy away from the question on a recent trip to New Mexico:

“White Sox. I don’t want to be polarizing or dissuade any voters for President Obama. But working class families and blue collar folks are White Sox fans.”

Lucas’s belief in the relationship between equality, families and opportunity has been a strong motivator for the 26 year-old television star to get involved in President Obama’s re-election effort.

“Equality is one of the highest tenets of any society that claims to want to be democratic. I don’t think you can really be democratic if your society is systemically unbalanced.

“Over half the country are women and to think that half our country is suffering wage discrimination that affects their ability to provide for their family is an incredibly important issue.

“Marriage equality. The President has taken a firm stand that he’s for marriage equality which is saying to everyone in this country that there is no such thing as a second class citizen.

“You deserve the right to be in love. You deserve the right to be with the person you love. And you deserve the right to declare that love to the rest of the world. I think that it’s all connected.

“The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Extending the Pell Grants for students. Ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Marriage Equality. The Dream Act. These are all things that -- at the end of the day -- can sort of be encompassed by the broad umbrella of equality.”

But it was more than the President’s work to promote equality that brought Lucas to New Mexico.

At UNM, he helped encourage students to register and commit to vote. From OFA New Mexico’s Albuquerque headquarters, he launched a high school youth canvass. And in Santa Fe, he kicked off a phone bank to mobilize support for President Obama and other Democrats in New Mexico.

All in less than 12 hours.

Why is Lucas so excited to help re-elect the President? America’s families have a lot to do with it.

“Instantly, the Affordable Care Act leaps to mind.

“It lets children stay on their parents’ insurance until they’re 26. Any parent would tell you that the health and safety of their child is paramount. There's the fact that insurers cannot deny people based on pre-existing conditions. Children are getting health insurance and medical coverage for things they didn’t use to. And that affects families directly.

“To give women the chance to get compensated fairly for doing the same job as men means that they are able to bring more income into a family household.

“Anything that protects children is something that strikes a real chord in terms of how much value is placed on the family.”

From fair pay for women to ending the Iraq War, Lucas sees a connection between the President’s policies and America’s families.

“You look at it, and that’s the thing about family and workplace and healthcare -- they’re all interrelated and interdependent. And you have to understand that there is a causal relationship between every policy and every person.

To sort of take a step back and appreciate how all these threads are woven into the tapestry that is our country, that when you start to really grasp what [the president] has been able to do for the regular American family.”

Lucas Neff has Barack Obama’s back in the fight for equality and America’s families. Will you help?

There are just 36 days until Election Day… and only eight days until early voting begins October 9th in New Mexico. Help decide this election. Sign up to volunteer at http://ofa.bo/nmvolunteer